For light vehicles, engine blocks and their main bearing caps are increasingly made from cast aluminum for their weight-saving potential. However cast aluminum engine blocks and main bearing caps are typically bulkier than their cast iron counterparts to compensate for the substantially inferior tensile strengths typically displayed by cast aluminum parts thereby negating some of the weight saving advantage previously mentioned. To alleviate this problem, engine manufacturers have combined cast aluminum engine blocks with cast iron main bearing caps. However, the use of cast iron main bearing caps with aluminum engine cylinder blocks or crankcases requires more complex and difficult machining and increases the weight of the engine.
Thus, there is a need for a crankshaft bearing assembly that alleviates some of the drawbacks of conventional crankshaft bearing assembly and preferably improves the durability of the engine in which the crankshaft bearing assembly is used.